A crisp, Thursday night brought the Pennridge Rams to Warrington to face off in a rival men’s volleyball game. With Pennridge missing four top varsity players, Chris McKinney, Vince Olindo, Andrew Bergey, and Pat Maulbaum, the game was off to a rocky start before any players stepped foot on the court. The announcer took the microphone, “Now for Pennridge RAMS starting lineup…’’ The bleachers were full of CB South and Pennridge fans split down the middle. As the National Anthem played with the teams all hand and hand, each player looked ready for what was yet to come. This game was going to be either a blow out for CB South, or was going to be a long night in a match out of five.

During this first match, Coach Dave Childs of Pennridge High School, chose to change up his lineup. He chose Zach Vaneman, junior, to be the new setter while Austin Jalosinski, senior, to be the right side. Along with these two players, Childs put many new starters into the first and second match.When asked what the team thought of CB South’s team ranking Danny Rutter replied, “We knew South was going to be a solid team all around going into the game. We were short handed and we worked out a new rotation that worked very well. Our setter, Zach Vaneman, really stepped up and gave our offense some great balls to put up.” CB South had the first serve of the game. Daniel Rutter, senior, had the first perfect pass to Vaneman. Pennridge was up by twelve points throughout the majority of the first match. The clear winner of the game was predicted from a mile away. Pennridge kept getting kill after kill without breaking a sweat. The first match of the game ended in 25-13. During the switching of the sides, Pennridge knew that they could try new rotations, positions, and players in this game. The game started off with an unpredictable outcome. Pennridge got a 10-2 lead against CB South in this match. Coach Childs was content with the other coaches as he watched his team blossom for the first true time this season. Pennridge had some missteps along with CB South. CB South began to miss the majority of their serves where as Pennridge only missed a few at a time.

The second match flew by with a Pennridge victory of 25-10 against a run-down CB South defense. Pennridge stepped off the gas when entering the third match and doubted South’s defensive and offensive skill. The Titans put up a good fight in the third set, They began to see where the Rams weakest spots were on the court and played that to their advantage. Coach Childs called a timeout, Jalosinski stated that, “We were began to play down to their level. We needed to gain motivation to win this third match.” Pennridge soon after came back and somehow brought back their lead against the Titans by finishing off with a score of 25-20.